The Iraqi Election Results: A Bloody Joke

A Bloody Joke

The Iraqi election results are out, and while as I said before, it is an overall success, the need to respect the minorities is crucial.
If this was a country with a huge majority and one tiny minority, I’d have to acknowledge that the minorities would just be crushed and there would be no other way.
Iraq has one majority, the Shia, and plenty of not so minor minorities such as the Sunnis the Kurds, the Assyrians, and then still plenty of others like the Turkmen and Yezedis.

The results have come out, and it looks like the Shias rightly won a major proportion of the vote. The Kurds got a higher than expected result, coming in second. Allawi’s party is third, and in fact I find this reassuring because it means he wasn’t considered such a puppet after all.
The Sunni’s vote is absolutely minor and unrepresentative of their constituency. This is going to be a huge problem if the bigger winners decide to be, well, grand, and give the Sunni some seats anyway. It will be tempting not to do so. But one must remember, a lot of Iraq was under fire, and that didn’t prevent others from voting. While I understand the insurgency has prevented some of them to vote, a lot of Sunnis boycotted the election and as of such, their lack of representation is self imposed.

The Kurds have been well organized for years since the no-fly zone meant they had to sort things out for themselves. It also meant they were in a position of domination for years and have been able to vote comfortably, feeling safe and at home. They also voted on whether they should become an independent nation, so interest was high!

As for the Assyrians, I am most disappointed and sad for them. They were also very keen to vote and finally show that they are there, present, and numerous, but through efforts from various bodies, their votes have been minimized. As I reported earlier here, the Kurdish authority and other Muslims were responsible for providing voting equipment, personnel and ballots in provinces that were largely Assyrian. These towns and villages were home to over 300.000 Assyrians. On January 30th, they ballots did not arrive. They didn’t vote. So whatever the result for Assyrians, it is unjust and unrepresentative. You will know this anyway because they will most certainly complain about it during the next 3 days of “discussion”, unless they are given seats just like the Sunnis should be given seats.
Assyrians are the original inhabitants of Iraq. They still speak Aramaic, the language of spoken at the time of Jesus, and they are Christian –this has cost them a lot.
Even in America, the towns were the voting stations were placed was biased and unrepresentative of where the Assyrians are [Chicago, California, etc], and Assyrians represent at least 80% of Iraqis in America!
Check out www.aina.org, the Assyrian news agency for full details of how Assyrians were prevented from voting, and the daily horrors these people have had to suffer, not only recently, but for the past 1400 years!

So congrats to Shias and Kurds. Condolences to Assyrians and all others.